Etch A Sketch

Did you know that the Etch A Sketch is 50 years old? It was invented by a Frenchman in the late 1950's. It was licensed to the Ohio Art Company and debuted as Etch A Sketch in July 1960. I had one as a child and spent many happy, frustrating hours playing with it, but I could never produce anything astounding. If you have ever had one, were you ever able to draw amazing things or even write legibly?

According to Wikipedia:

An Etch A Sketch is a thick, flat gray screen in a plastic frame. There are two knobs on the front of the frame in the lower corners. Twisting the knobs moves a stylus that displaces aluminum powder on the back of the screen, leaving a solid line. The knobs create lineographic images. The left control moves the stylus horizontally, and the right one moves it vertically.

As I researched for this blog post, I was surprised that there are actual Etch A Sketch artists out there. Here are some pictures I found online of the creations I could never have done. I was unable to find attribution for some of them. If I've posted yours and you would like credit and a link, let me know.

This one was done by Etch A Sketch artist George Vlosich. The drawing looks too perfect to be real! This guy takes Etch A Sketch art to a whole new level!

There are different products that are spin-offs of the Etch A Sketch. Here's a pocket Etch A Sketch.

Here's an Etch A Sketch pen that might offer some competition for students' attention.

There's an app for it...?

Now here's one I have a hard time believing.

I'm a little nostalgic since my 40 year high school reunion was this past weekend up in Ohio. I was not able to attend, but I have heard that those who did enjoyed it. Since I'm on this nostalgia kick, I'm remembering that 10 years ago there was a lot of hype about the y2k bug. Below is a solution proposed by one company (in jest, of course).

Our goal is to remove all computers from the desktop by Jan 1, 1999. In place of the current computer, everyone will be provided with an Etch A Sketch. There are several benefits to this move:

1. No y2k problems

2. No technical glitches keeping work from being done.

3. No more wasted time reading and writing e-mails.

4. Better development of upper body strength.

In anticipation of your questions, an FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) has been provided:

Q: My Etch A Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen.
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I turn my Etch A Sketch off?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What's the shortcut for Undo?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I create a New Document window?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same color?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch A Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch A Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

14 Comments on “Etch A Sketch”

I’ve never had the patience for the Etch a Sketch. A friend in college once reproduced each of the pieces of art in BJU’s Living Gallery for that year. As far as I know he never wiped out the 15 sketches that he made. Quite amazing.

I remember as a kid playing with etch-a-sketch while traveling in the car during our furloughs. What we liked doing was drawing the lines so close together up and down throughout the whole screen so that the internal parts of the etch-a-sketch could be seen. This would take a long time to do and I only remember being able to get it halfway done. I think an older sibling was able to do the whole screen.

@Corene – I remember doing what you and your sibs did enough to be able to see at least some of the inner workings, but like you, I could never get it all cleared off. Thanks for making me think of that fun memory.

I must confess – all the unidentified artists are me!! No, seriously, we also spent hours playing with the thing – mostly just trying to make a straight diagonal line. Sadly we never really succeed. But we did make lots of Christmas trees trying. Circles were even more of a challenge.

I can’t imagine how long it would take someone to actually master drawing on it. And how many Etch a Sketches did they have to go through in learning? It seemed that, within a short period of time they would start to leak around the knobs and Mom would throw it out.

My brother would create amazing art using our etch a sketch as kids. I remember him drawing our whole kitchen, and it looked real! He’s still good at it, using it to design houses (blueprint style) or draw cars or whatever.

What is the “commentLUV” at the bottom of the comment submit button? It is always checked and I have to uncheck it before submitting my comments, as I don’t know what it is.

Hilarious cartoons. I don’t recall if I ever owned an etch-a-sketch. The times I remember using one was in waiting rooms either for the doctor or the dentist. They were really frustrating to me. As for the piece of the Andy Griffith characters, I have to wonder how the guy was able to create different shades of gray. Fascinating.

@b.j. – To what do you attribute your brother’s ability to create such good Etch A Sketch art? CommentLuv is “plugin” for WordPress that captures the most recent blog post of a commenter who types in his website and leaves it checked that he wants to have a link to his most recent post displayed. It’s a way of thanking commenters by sending traffic to their blog/s.

@Michael – I share your frustration and your amazement about the shades of gray. Glad you liked my cartoon and the one posted by Anonymous.

@Brendon – Yes, it’s fragile art, for sure. I’m sure you would be a virtuoso at the Etch A Sketch, Brendon! 😀

Etch-a-Sketches always seemed like they should be fun, but somehow, they just ended up being more frustrating than not. You’d be doing great, and then you’d make one mistake and have to start all over again!! However, what my sister and I liked to do was start in the corner and then make consecutive rectangles all the way in to the middle. Pretty simple concept, a little harder to accomplish evenly, but at least it was possible. I don’t know about that Andy Griffith cartoon — it really looks too “real.”

I would guess he was good at it because he’s a good artist all around. And it wasn’t like we had video games and all that to take up our time. Most of our toys were from the great outdoors. Monopoly got old on rainy days, so out would come the artwork! It was a wonder, though, especially as he could never sit still for very long most of the time. Even now, at 28, he still does bike and roller blade tricks over sitting around. I was more like the others on this post, trying to get the screen completely blank so we could see how the etch-a-sketch worked!

@Jenny and Carrie – I’m with you both – the frustration vs. fun factor, not being good at such a fascinating toy, and thinking that the Andy Griffith drawing is almost too good. Maybe it’s just because I’m so horrible at Etch A Sketching?

@b.j. – I grew up in Ohio, and we had so many days that demanded indoor activities. And as you commented, Monopoly (and even other games) got old, plus trying to find someone else in the house who was willing to play games with you! The Etch A Sketch was a good activity to do alone.

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My name is Rob Loach and I welcome you to my blog. People come here for an "instant vacation." You can learn more about me and about my instant vacations, including why my blog is called "ivman's blague," by visiting the about page, where you can watch my TV interview about my blog. My site is thirteen years old, so check out the tabs at the top of this page, subjects of interest to you in the tag cloud (below), and older blog posts (about 750 of them) not on the home page of the blog. Though I am posting less often than at first, there's still lots of archived humor here for you to enjoy!

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